


The Old Stomping Grounds

by thetreesgrowodd



Category: Ghostbusters (Movies)
Genre: Community: spook_me, Dinosaurs, Gen, Halloween, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before they were famous, Dean Yeager kicked them out of Columbia University. Now he needs the Ghostbusters to stop a monster that's rampaging through the campus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Stomping Grounds

"Exercise is great, exercise is fantastic. And I'm delighted to see you trying to get into shape, Ray. I'm just saying, the weight loss part would go better if your daily workout wasn't walking to the store to buy candy," Peter said to Ray, leaning casually against one of the thick pillars in the garage area of the firehouse.

"Well it's not for me. It's for Egon. You know he needs to have sugar to work."

"But you eat it too!"

"Yeah, well, I have to be around it all day in the lab! It's not fair. My body turns it into fat — his turns it into mental brilliance," Ray said with a frown, opening the front door. A woman walking by gave them a wide berth and a curious look. Who could blame her, with the reputation the Ghostbusters had these days?

"Fine. Enjoy your healthy walk through scenic New York City," Peter said.

"Yeah yeah."

The phone rang at Janine's desk for the first time that day and Ray froze, half in and half out the door.

"A call," Ray and Peter said in unison, though in very different tones.

Janine answered it and spoke briefly. Then she nonchalantly called, "Doctor Venkman, Animal Control on line one," and jabbed the hold button with the eraser end of her pencil.

Ray gave Peter a curious look, and Peter put on an absurdly innocent expression.

* * *

"Bigger than a breadbox? …Well I don't know, I've never actually seen one either," Peter said into the phone in his office. "Bigger than a refrigerator? Wait, let me put it this way — if it were wearing a pair of designer jeans, what floor of a skyscraper would I need to be on to see the label?"

Nearby, Ray was nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet as he listened to Peter's side of the strange conversation.

"And we're sure it's not breathing fire?" Peter asked. Ray met his eyes with an expectant look while Peter listened to the answer. "No fire," Peter repeated. Ray snapped his fingers, disappointed.

"Ok, now for the really important stuff. Who is actually hiring us? Is it you guys? I like to know where to send my bill. Yeah, let me talk to whoever it is." Peter covered up the mouthpiece of the phone and said to Ray, "Big dinosaur."

"Big… dinosaur…" Ray breathed, reverently.

"Yes, hello?" Peter said as someone new came onto the line. A strange expression crossed his face, then settled into one of smug amusement. "Dean Yeager. I hear you need the Ghostbusters."

* * *

A few minutes later, Peter was off the phone and all four Ghostbusters were assembled in his office.

"Man. We had two little incidents of giant things walking through the streets of Manhattan, and now everybody associates that with us. Giant dinosaur rampaging at Columbia? I know, let's call the Ghostbusters," Winston said lightly.

"Not old Yeager, not after chucking us out of there. Swallowing his pride and calling us was his last resort," chuckled Peter, "he called everybody else he could think of before us. Even animal control can't handle this thing."

"Which brings up a very relevant point. How are we going to handle it?" Egon asked.

"Well the throwers zap a lot of stuff, ectoplasmic or not. I say we give it a good blast and see what happens," Ray said.

"Oh yeah? And if it steps on our faces first?"

"Guys, guys," Peter said, holding up his hands. "Look, this is probably nothing more than an early Halloween prank. Somebody got a big iguana or gila monster or something and the reports have gotten all inflated. We get there, we get media coverage, we rub his face in it, we get paid and go home. Done and done."

"It may be a student prank, or it may not. We need to be careful. I propose that we only attempt to engage the creature if it gives of PK energy," Egon said pragmatically. "We have to draw a line somewhere between what is and isn't our jurisdiction."

* * *

Despite feeling unprepared, they rushed to get their equipment together and go. Even though nobody had been seriously hurt yet, there was every possibility that people were currently in danger. Ray and Winston piled all the traps they could find into the back of Ecto-1. Egon, in his full gear, walked down the steps and across the floor while using a handheld acetylene torch on a small device. Winston and Peter exchanged a look, then Peter rushed forward.

"Yo, Egon, remember that rule we made up? No welding around Ecto and the packs?"

"I'm not," Egon said, without looking up. "I'm soldering."

"Same thing, buddy. Unless we're facing off with Stay Puft again, in which case I hope you've got a jumbo version of that blow torch thingie for each of us."

Egon extinguished the flame ruefully and they got the rest of their gear and themselves loaded into the car. Ray got behind the wheel and automatically pushed a mix tape into the tape deck. The music started and as they drove Ray's head nodded in time with the music. Then the chorus came on.

"Open the door, get on the floor, Everybody walk the dinosaur, Open the door, get on the floor…"

Peter, in the shotgun seat, raised one hand. "Vote," he said simply.

"Off," all four of them chorused.

"The people have spoken," Peter said and ejected the tape.

* * *

The crowd got thick as they approached Columbia University. The news media was already there, plus a lot of people just standing around trying to see what was going on. But there seemed to be a lot of students heading away from campus on foot or on bikes — no doubt more interested in taking advantage of their unexpected free time than in fleeing for their own safety.

The crowd parted for them and faces and camera lenses were pressed against their windows. All but Egon — who was intently studying three detection devices, one in each hand and one clasped between his knees — waved to the people outside.

"Remember last time. Leave the windows up," Winston cautioned.

Somebody thumped the roof of the car. A pretty girl leaned over, revealing ample cleavage to Peter's window, and smiled and blew a kiss at him.

"Call me," Peter mouthed, making a phone gesture with his hand held up to his ear.

The frazzled security guards told them to report to Dean Yeager's office, and let them through a barricade that was holding the mob back, and Ray drove right onto campus. They all peered around but could see no signs of a large, rampaging monster. Yet when they stepped out of the car, Egon and Ray raised their PKE meters in perfect synchronization, and they both reacted strongly. Egon frowned at his while Ray smiled.

"Looks like it's a job for us after all, doesn't it?"

* * *

It was odd being back on campus after several years. They went directly to Dean Yeager's office — Peter nearly rubbing his hands in glee at the thought of facing him. When they arrived they found that his office, if possible, was more crowded and chaotic than the perimeter of the campus had been.

There were lots of people, some in uniform — cops, campus security, professors, administrators, and animal control — and they were all talking. One uniformed officer sat on the floor holding an ice bag to his head while a nurse bandaged the ankle of a second. There was a map of the school on the desk with people pointing to it and arguing. Dean Yeager himself was at the back of the room deep in conversation with someone. Could it be that he was pretending to be too busy to acknowledge the Ghostbusters?

"Can you believe this?" Winston muttered, and spotted Yeager's secretary seated at a desk. "Hey, can you tell whoever's in charge that we're here?"

"The old fossil himself," Peter said, eyeing Yeager from across the room.

The secretary squeezed through the mob. "Oh, excuse me, sir," he said, trying to attract his boss' attention over the din. "Oh, Dean Yeager," he tried again, waving at him. "Oh my, it's so noisy. Sir, the Ghostbusters are here," he called again, but Yeager didn't give any sign of hearing.

Egon stopped frowning at his meters and frowned at the chaos around him. "This is a waste of our time. The creature may be causing death and destruction as we speak. We must take action immediately."

"Yo, Yeager," Peter shouted, but he didn't respond.

"Hey, can everybody quiet down for just a second!" Winston called. Nobody gave any indication of hearing him at all.

Egon took a slow, deep breath. "PARDON ME," Egon projected with amazing volume over the cacophony. Surprised, everyone went silent and turned to look at him, even Dean Yeager. Finally.

"Thank you, Egon, that's much better," Peter said, clapping him on the back. Then he stepped forward. "Hey Yeager, long time no see. You didn't write, you didn't call, and most importantly, you never apologized. But hey, water under the bridge, forgive and forget." Peter grinned. "We heard you have a little trouble here. I think we can help you out."

They were briefed quickly on what had been going on, but Dean Yeager let the police, animal control and campus security do most of the talking. A security guard relayed a story of finding a door smashed, entering, and catching a chilling glimpse of the creature in his flashlight beam. Since then the creature had been lumbering around campus for most of the day. Classes had been cancelled and students evacuated. Nobody had been seriously injured, but it had caused a panic and quite a bit of property damage.

A professor showed them some blurry polaroids of the creature — it was indeed big and greenish, but the pictures didn't convey much else. Nobody seemed to be able to give a good description of how large it really was.

Bullets and tranquilizers hadn't even made the creature flinch and nobody had a way of physically restraining it. The police had a plan of physically ramming it with several large vehicles to knock it down, then chaining it in place, but it would be hours before they could assemble the right people and equipment for that kind of thing, if they could even get the permission and paperwork sorted out. And if they failed, they'd call in the army.

"No need," Peter said, confidently shaking his head, "'cause we're gonna deal with this, no problem. Right guys?"

The other three Ghostbusters gave him funny looks, but agreed. They had no idea how to stop it, beyond just blasting it and hoping for the best. Unwilling to show doubt in front of Dean Yeager, they headed confidently out f the room.

"Excuse me." A well dressed man stepped forward into their path. "Whether you capture the beast alive or dead, the body should go to science. It's an extraordinary opportunity. Think of what we could learn from it.

"My readings indicate that the creature is ectoplasmic — that is, as the layman would call it, supernatural — in nature, and not a true dinosaur," Egon explained. "However, although paleontology is not my particular field of study, and who actually owns the creature is a matter for the lawyers, I would also like to see that any salvageable remains go to an appropriate location for scientific study."

The man smiled, "it just so happens that paleontology is my life's work. My name is Brantam Bay. I came down here to appeal for the specimen to be donated to my lab."

"Isn't Dr. Maniquis still here?" Ray asked. "Columbia has a great paleontology department. I think it should go to them."

"Yes, but—"

Peter held up his hand in a blocking motion. "Hey. We don't need lookie-loos coming down here, hoping to score some major prize. Right now, we're needed out there to save lives, and you're holding us up." Peter pressed ahead, past the man, bumping his shoulder.

"But—"

"No more," Winston said, steering Egon on, after Peter. They got outside at last, leaving the crowded office behind them.

"Seriously now guys, how much can we sell this thing for?" Peter asked under his breath.

"How would we even move it?" Ray asked.

"I'm working on that," Peter replied, stroking his chin.

Dusk was falling, and the empty campus was eerie. The officials were doing a stellar job of keeping students and reporters out of the way, because they had never seen the campus this empty, not even in the middle of the night. A street light on a timer turned itself off suddenly to their right, and all four of them jumped and turned toward it, drawing their throwers. They laughed a little, nervously, at their reaction but didn't holster their weapons.

"A Halloween prank. Just a Halloween prank, that's all this is," Peter muttered. "Dinosaurs, what nonsense."

As if on cue, something lumbered out from behind a building ahead of them. It wasn't as big as they had feared — more like ten feet tall, not ten stories — and that should have been a relief. But it wasn't. Because the dinosaur had such a weight to it, such a presence, terrible and mesmerizing all at once. Such a feeling of raw power and mass came from it, that they all felt very naked and vulnerable in front of it.

"Ok guys…" Peter said when he finally found his voice. He swallowed. "Ok… fan out, nice and easy. Ray, you with us? Hold your shots… whites of its eyes." They cautiously got into position in front of the beast, holding the throwers as steady as their shaking hands would allow. They'd faced worse than this, hadn't they? Hadn't they? The dinosaur didn't really seem to notice them. "Ready guys? Don't cross the streams. And… fire!"

The four streams hit the creature, but instead of burning it, as would normally happen with living flesh, the beams wrapped around it as if it were a ghost. Slightly agitated by the beams, but otherwise unharmed, the dinosaur thrashed around a little and bellowed. The Ghostbusters held steady and saw that the beams had wrapped around a wispy, ghostlike blob of energy at the core of the dinosaur.

"Look! Whatever that is, its trappable!" Ray shouted.

The energy popped up out of the dinosaur and bobbed there, caught in the streams like a fly in a web. The dinosaur ducked down low to the ground below it.

"Trap out!" Ray tossed the trap and stomped the pedal to open it.

The dinosaur, as if in a panic, thrashed around and stepped on the trap, crushing it. Ray muttered a curse, but already Winston had his trap in position and open. They wrestled to maneuver the energy blob toward it, but it fought them hard, as many of their more difficult ghosts had.

Suddenly, the dinosaur craned its neck forward and intently stared Egon right in the face. It made a growling sound. Egon stared at it, around his stream, but didn't react otherwise.

"Egon, the dino!" Winston shouted.

Peter pulled his shot. He took a moment to aim at the dinosaur, to avoid hitting his teammates or crossing the streams, but he had to take a few quick sidesteps.

"No Peter, wait," Egon shouted, taking a cautious step back and fighting to hold his thrower steady, but eyeing the dinosaur with interest.

"Dammit, Egon, defend yourself!" Peter shouted.

At that moment, the bucking energy blob, now held by only three streams, slipped away. It streaked off into the night sky, hissing. They all shut off their streams and aimed at the dinosaur, which was still making its odd growling noises in Egon's face.

"Stop, don't shoot," Egon said urgently, holding one hand up. "You absolutely must not shoot."

Confused, they all held their shots. And with the sound of the throwers gone, the dinosaur's noises became clearer.

"Dr. Spengler?" the dinosaur said, "Dr. Stantz? Dr. Venkman? Is that you? I've had one hell of a day."

* * *

"I feel really naked. Should I cover up with something? I suppose there's really no need," the dinosaur said in its growling words, looking down at itself.

They had regrouped in the paleontology department, in the office of Dr. Maniquis. The dinosaur fit into the building if he hunched down. All the doorjambs were already broken — obviously the dinosaur had already forced his way through the building earlier — so getting through the doors was no problem. The office was small and pleasantly cluttered. Students had been giving Dr. Maniquis toy dinosaurs for years, and he had proudly devoted an entire bookcase next to the door to them — they were in all colors and sizes, some personalized with messages written in permanent marker, or things tied around their necks. They'd outgrown that space some years ago, though, and some also stood on the desk and other surfaces of the room. His other passion was evident too, with stacks of candy and candy wrappers. He had always been as bad as Egon when it came to that.

The office was familiar to Egon, Ray and Peter, because Dr. Simon Maniquis, head of the paleontology department, had been their colleague and friend.

Right now though, he was a dinosaur.

He perched gingerly on his old sofa. "Normally I'd offer you all a cup of tea. I'd like one myself. Well, under normal circumstances I would. At the moment, however, my tastes run more toward raw meat." Dr. Maniquis growled thoughtfully and drooled a little. "Crunchy with bones…"

Peter shook his head, laughing. "It's so fitting. I mean, you must love it! Being turned into a dino, just what you always wanted."

Dr. Maniquis turned sharply toward Peter, reptilian eyes focusing on him. Their fear of the creature, which had dissipated ever since it spoke to them, returned at the sight of him angry. "I may have devoted my life to the study of dinosaurs, but that doesn't mean I want to be one. Would you like to turn into ghosts?"

"Not right now, thanks," Winston said.

"I don't know how this happened to me!" Dr. Maniquis said. "I remember things that happened, but vaguely, wandering around campus and everyone running and men in uniforms shooting things at me. Goodness, that should have been terrifying, shouldn't it? But I couldn't really think clearly until you zapped me with those things. I don't know if I could speak before. I didn't think to try."

"You were possessed by some kind of ectoplasmic energy," Egon told him, waving the PKE meter around slowly and studying the screen. "We were unable to capture it, we only drove it out of you. It is no longer present in you — I only detect fading residual readings now. With your permission, I'd like to put this around your neck to prevent repossession." He held up the small gizmo he'd been working on earlier, which he'd hastily attached to a chain. "It's a new experimental device that should create a field that repels ectoplasmic entities."

Dr. Maniquis agreed and bowed his head in a gesture that looked out of place on a creature like him, and Egon secured it around his neck.

"Pretty smart of Egon to bring that along. He must have suspected something like this," Winston murmured.

"Nah," Peter said with a wicked grin. "He was going to wear it to protect himself from ghosts, I bet."

"So the energy is gone and it won't take over my mind again?" Dr. Maniquis asked. "But I'm still a dinosaur."

"It wasn't a normal possession. There was some type of physical transformation coupled with it. We don't fully understand it yet. I speculate that it was that energy that protected you from the bullets and tranquilizers and even our proton streams. But that protection is gone — you will be vulnerable to them again." Egon said.

"We're gonna have to go out there and tell all of them not to fire at you," Winston groaned.

"Good thinking, but we're safely out of sight for the moment. Let's try to pinpoint why you were transformed, so we can begin to work on a way to turn you back." Egon said.

"Egon, I'm getting other residual readings in this room, beyond the ones coming from Dr. Maniquis," Ray said, moving his PKE meter around slowly.

"Did you notice how the door was broken outward?" Winston pointed to it. "Meaning, you must have been in here when you were transformed."

"Yes, I think so."

They quickly homed in on the trash can. Ray dumped it out on the floor and Egon sorted through the contents until he identified the source of the residual energy. It was a small, empty box of chocolates. He held it up and a groan went through the room as they read it — "Dino Eggs! Prehistoric fun! Crunchy Candy Shell with Chocolate Centers!," it said next to a cartoony purple dinosaur.

"Where did you get these?" Egon asked.

"Someone left them for me. Students drop off presents from time to time, you know," Dr. Maniquis replied.

Peter burst out, "and you ate them?"

"It was still wrapped! I'm not such an idiot to eat unwrapped candy!"

"They appear to be what triggered your transformation," Egon said. "I believe someone tampered with these chocolates."

"Someone did this on purpose?" Dr. Maniquis sighed and closed his eyes and leaned back.

Just then, someone swung open the ruined door and they all jumped, except for Dr. Maniquis who froze and played dead. It was the well-dressed paleontologist from Dean Yeager's office, and he stepped in, eyeing the dinosaur form on the couch warily. "So, you've subdued the beast then? I've come to see if you would reconsider donating it to me. We can discuss it again here as businessmen, away from the police and everyone in the dean's office."

They stared at him. Egon silently raised his meter and aimed it at Mr. Bay. It beeped faintly.

Slightly unnerved, Mr. Bay glanced around the room. "Good heavens, Dr. Maniquis' office is a mess, I do hope no harm has come to him. But it would seem that Columbia's paleontology department is in no condition to take on such a valuable specimen at the moment. But I can take it off of your hands." He pulled out a checkbook.

"Brantam Bay!" the dinosaur on the couch growled, jerking back to life and swinging his massive head toward his rival. "Funny how quick you got here… not even waiting until my supposed body is cold!"

The man jumped and took a few steps backwards. "It… it… spoke! No, no that was just growling, wasn't it? He shouldn't be able to speak. Why aren't you attacking it?" He pointed wildly at dinosaur-Maniquis.

"Fascinating," Egon said calmly, "I am reading the same residual energy on this individual as we found on the chocolate wrapper."

"I — what are you talking about?" Mr. Bay asked them, taking another step back toward the door. "Shoot it!"

"Get out of here!" Dr. Maniquis snarled, leaning forward menacingly. "I'm having the strongest urges to… to… chomp you in half!"

Mr. Bay's face grew pale.

"Easy now," Peter said, holding his hand up. "As satisfying as that may feel, I for one don't care to have nightmares about that for the rest of my life if it's all the same."

"Wow! Egon, I'm reading the energy again!" Ray said, swinging the meter around.

"The energy is returning. It's all around us," Egon confirmed.

"What does that mean?" Mr. Bay asked.

"Yeah, I'd like to know that too," Winston chimed in, thrower already in hand.

"What that means is—," began Egon.

At that instant, a very large dinosaur model that had been standing on the floor near the door, turned and sunk its stubby, plastic teeth into Mr. Bay's leg. He shrieked, slapped at it ineffectually with both hands, then ran off with it still attached to his leg.

Ray laughed, dashing to the door to watch him go. "That was amazing! It possessed the toy!"

"That particular model wasn't even articulated — how could it turn like that?" Dr. Maniquis wondered. "Oh well. It did what I wanted to do. I'm glad I didn't have to do it."

"The energy is dividing… Ray look at this," Egon said, urgently. "There are multiple targets. I've never seen an entity split like this before…"

Winston looked from the PKE meter, to the bookcase of dinosaur toys, to Ray standing right next to it. "Ray," he called.

Ray glanced back over his shoulder at Winston's warning tone, but something distracted him. He stared intently at the top shelf of the bookcase. There was movement there. Ray darted back to the other Ghostbusters.

"Uh-oh," Dr. Maniquis said, thudding to his massive feet and taking out a few ceiling tiles with his head. "Oh, drat!"

They stood for a few seconds, frozen and bemused at the sight of an army of dinosaur toys advancing toward them. They walked right off of the shelves and the desk but got right back up again, plastic tails thrashing, jaws opening, painted eyes seeming to focus on them.

Then all at once, Peter stomped on a few of the closest ones on their right, sending pieces flying. Ray shot a few wild blasts at the ones advancing on their left, and Winston effectively took out the largest concentration of dinosaur toys in the bookcase near the door. The smell of burning wood and melting plastic filled the air.

"Trap out!" Egon knelt and tossed a trap toward the center of the room, deftly avoiding the patches of burning carpet and Peter's wild feet and even knocking over a brownish stegosaurus for extra points. He ignored the broken off dinosaur head that flew from Peter's crushing boots to ricochet off Egon's glasses with a ping. "Opening… now!"

There was a blinding light and the energy that was animating the toys whipped into the trap. Egon shut it, and they all stood for a moment, looking at the ruined and once again lifeless toys scattered around.

"Was that it? Did we get it?" Winston asked, turning too look around the room. He peered closely at Dr. Maniquis.

"Dr. Spengler, your device seems to have worked," Dr. Maniquis said, fingering the collar. "They didn't repossess me."

"Nor did it possess any of us, only the toys. I theorize the energy is drawn to dinosaur forms only," Egon said, collecting his trap as Peter and Winston stomped out the fire.

"Guys, this is bad. We're not done," Ray said, eyeing his PKE meter. "There's more of that energy out there."

"So what's it gonna do?" Winston asked. "Possess more dinosaur toys?"

"Oh sure, where's it gonna find any more here? I mean how many dinosaur toys can there be on a college campus of this size?" Ray asked, laughing dismissively. "In all the classrooms and offices and… dorms… um… uh-oh."

After a moment of stunned silence, Winston said, "Good thing we brought all the traps."

"So we'll just go all around the campus looking for them and sucking them into traps. Awesome," Peter said. "Dr. Maniquis, why don't you stay hidden inside for now," Peter said. "It's going to be hard to explain your condition to Dean Yeager and everybody."

"What if Brantam Bay told them?"

Peter shook his head. "He was really freaked out and I doubt if they'd take a story like that seriously — which is why I don't look forward to explaining it to them myself."

"We might have to, though," Ray said, "but I promise, if it's possible, we'll find a way to turn you back. Just as soon as we deal with this."

They left the building then, and found the large dinosaur model that had attacked Mr. Bay. It was wandering around aimlessly, until it saw them, then it charged, snapping its teeth. They sucked the energy out of it into a trap, and began their long trek around campus to check for any more possessed toys.

They found them, some rattling against windows, trying to get out, some walking across campus with that eerily smooth, lifelike motion in spite of being made out of stiff plastic. A few brave — or foolish — students who had ignored the evacuation order carried their possessed toys out to the Ghostbusters, usually tied in a pillowcase or trapped in a box, to have the energy drained off.

The toys weren't really dangerous, just annoying. They couldn't do more damage than small nips with their dull plastic teeth, really. Once the remaining police officers and security guards realized that fact, they assisted the Ghostbusters in gathering the toys up and unlocking the evacuated dorm rooms to let the tiny dinosaurs out.

It was a very long, very tiring process, and it took all night. A few times one of them ventured the question "what if this spread further than the campus?" but none of them answered. They couldn't even imagine what it would be like to repeat this process in toy stores all over New York. But as the night wore on, the blips on the PKE meter grew fewer. The pile of exorcised toys — which included a few odd dragons and lizards and one very memorable green, dinosaur shaped vibrator that had buzzed at them menacingly — had grown large.

At last when the sky began to show signs of getting lighter, and Dean Yeager and several others came out of the office to watch the Ghostbusters from a safe distance, they thought they were done. Peter and Winston had a quick smoke while Ray and Egon conversed over their meters, trying to decide if they could officially give the all clear. But nothing made them certain that the crisis was over like seeing Dr. Maniquis, fully human again (and looking older, balder and paunchier than they remembered him) striding across the campus toward them

"Hey!" Ray shouted and ran up to him.

"It was the oddest thing!" Dr. Maniquis told them. "I just turned back about fifteen minutes ago! Whatever you did, it worked!" Laughing and excited he shook all of their hands and they clapped him on the back. "You know," Dr. Maniquis said, seriously, "a lot of us here who remember you don't agree with Yeager's decision to kick you out. We believe in you. I, certainly, believe in you."

Dean Yeager was too far away to be able to hear them, but seeing a member of his staff so happy with them was enough for him to shoot them the evil eye. But that was nothing compared to the look he gave Peter a few minutes later, when Peter declared their task officially complete — and an astounding success on their part to boot — and handed him the Ghostbusters' bill.

"Come on, you deserve your fifteen minutes," Peter said confidently, urging Dr. Maniquis forward toward the waiting press.

"Oh no! What'll I tell them? I don't want the world to know what happened to me."

Peter grinned. "You don't have to. I'll introduce you as the premier dino expert of New York City. That'll piss off that Brantam guy, won't it? Then you and me'll spin some great story about ancient dinosaur energy that temporarily popped in to say hi. Nothing more. Deal?"

"Deal," said Dr. Maniquis hesitantly. But with Peter urging him on, he gave the eager reporters quite a story, all the more amazing because parts of it were true.

* * *

Winston hummed to himself while he emptied a few bags of Halloween candy into a gigantic metal bowl in preparation for the first wave of trick-or-treaters of the night. They still had quite a few bags waiting — they'd learned from experience to expect an awful lot of kids. They all wanted to be able to say they'd gotten candy from the Ghostbusters.

He carried it to the front door, then looked up when he heard a creak on the stairs. It was Peter coming down in his costume. He threw up his hands theatrically when he saw that he had an audience. Winston scrutinized Peter's look carefully. Poet shirt worn open at the neck, long rumpled coat, bottle of booze. "Let me guess," Winston said, "sexy bum?"

Offended, Peter dropped his hands. "I'm a pirate! Sexy pirate!"

"Of course." Winston grinned.

Ray rushed down the stairs next and they stared at his costume, startled. Ray was dressed as a giant, round, red apple with an "I Heart N.Y." logo on it. His hat had an apple stem and leaf sticking out. "Hey guys! Looking good!" he said, looking from one to the other. "Let's see it with the VISOR!"

Winston smiled and put on the eyewear that completed his Geordi La Forge costume. Ray bounced in excitement at the sight. But a moment later, Janine came in the front door, so Winston removed it again so he could see her clearly.

Janine and Ray froze and stared at each other. They were wearing identical Big Apple costumes — only Janine's looked so much better, with her dangly Statue of Liberty earrings and her yellow and black taxi cab pumps. To say nothing of her feminine legs in black tights. She wore the apple stem hat at a fashionable angle.

"Aw, Janine," Ray groaned. But at the look in her eyes, there was no question about what he needed to do. "I'll go change," he sighed.

"Ray, I've got an idea," Winston said, following him upstairs.

"Isn't that embarrassing?" Peter asked Janine, tailing her over to her desk.

"What? Showing up wearing the same thing?" she asked, putting her purse in her desk.

"No… wearing that thing at all." He danced out of range of her punch, then got distracted by Egon walking down the stairs, staring intently at a PKE meter. "Egon, don't you want any candy? You can't expect to get candy on Halloween without a costume."

Egon glanced down at himself, then at the mini candy bar that Peter first waved at him, then unwrapped and bit into mockingly. "I am most obviously in costume."

Janine and Peter studied him. He was wearing his normal clothes with a lab coat, a few pieces of equipment in his pockets, and a pencil behind his ear.

"Gigantic nerd?" Peter guessed at the same time as Janine said, "Mad scientist?"

Egon drew himself up to his full height. "I am the Embodiment of Science."

"You're that everyday, though," Peter replied.

Egon actually smiled at that thought, a genuine, if very brief smile. After it faded, he set something down on Janine's desk and held the meter over it. "I've analyzed the wrapper from the contaminated chocolates that Dr. Maniquis received."

"Geez!" Peter moved away from it. "Should that be so close to our candy?"

"It's harmless, Peter. We trapped the entity."

"So, any word on what that thing was? And have you learned the perils of having such a sweet tooth?" Peter asked, finishing his candy bar.

"It may have been a genuine dinosaur spirit, or another type of entity that was somehow trained to be attracted to the form of a dinosaur," Egon said. "And Dr. Maniquis' 'sweet tooth' had nothing to do with his transformation — the chocolates were simply the method that someone, most likely Mr. Bay, who seemed to have a personal grudge against Dr. Maniquis, used to trigger his possession and physical transformation."

"It's terrible what some people will do," Janine said.

"Yeah, and I dunno how he could press charges against the guy," Peter said. "The laws just aren't there for this kind of thing. If he'd succeeded, though, he'd have taken out his rival and made himself the envy of paleontologists round the world by getting his hands on a real live dino. Crazy stuff."

Just then, the doorbell rang and they all stirred. Ray sprinted down the stairs in his eagerness to answer it. Winston's idea of putting an orange poncho on over the apple costume to make it into a pumpkin had only been partially successful. Now he just looked like a very round man who was prepared for rain.

"Ready, guys?" Winston asked. Janine hit the play button on the tape deck and the Halloween music started to play. All five of them crowded around the door.

Peter opened it. "Ok kids. Spook me."


End file.
